Download Computer Configuration and Troubleshooting

Computer Configuration and Troubleshooting Guidelines
If after using these recommended Windows settings your images still
appear incorrectly, your computer is likely still enforcing other power
savings options located in the BIOS.
The BIOS on most modern motherboards (especially Intel Core i3/5/7
systems), has enabled CPU speed throttling and power saving by
default (called “SpeedStep” and “C State”). These settings do not
allow for stable real-time image acquisition because the speed of the
CPU is constantly changing.
Follow the suggested settings below to ensure maximum performance.
Note: please consult with your computer/motherboard operating
manual or ‘boot screen’ for instructions about how to access settings
in the BIOS.
• Disable Intel SpeedStep & “CPU C State”
• Some BIOS menus have grouped these settings into more
generally-named options, set these sorts of power savings options
to ‘maximum power’/’least savings’ if there is any doubt.
Technical Note
Last resort measures may be necessary if the aforementioned efforts
do not remediate the imaging problems you’re having. This can be
indicative of other hardware competition for real-time resources in
your computer. As a last resort, you should try the following:
• Disable onboard sound card (typically an option in the computer
BIOS)
• Uninstall any software that is not required in the same system (such
as multimedia programs which constantly run in the background)
• Avoid using Gigabit Ethernet cards (1000Mbps) unless absolutely
necessary. Replace with a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet card if possible.
• If using a FireWire camera and you encounter many dropped
frames, use the Thesycon latency check tool (Found here: http://
www.thesycon.com/eng/latency_check.shtml) to check for high
yellow or red bars. These bars indicate heavy competition between
streaming/real-time devices, which puts a damper on all streaming
performance.
• Disable or toggle to ‘maximum power’ all power management/
savings settings related to:
- CPU speed (SpeedStep/throttling/dynamic performance)
- PCI/PCI-express bus
• Disable unused onboard devices
• Modern computer motherboards contain many built-in devices
including FireWire controllers, “WiFi”, and BlueTooth. These devices
use resources even while not in use, if they are enabled in the BIOS.
Please manually disable any devices which are not utilized regularly.
• Built-in FireWire controllers are not supported by Photometrics. Use
the provided FireWire card included with the camera.
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